Review of Foursquare application for BlackBerry Smartphones

It's a Friday night, you're out and about, you're at some swanky restaurant, or grabbing some drinks at a bar, or you're shopping at the mall. You want to know if you're other friends are around so you can meet up, what do you do? Well, you take out your BlackBerry and load FourSquare, check-in and see who else is around.

So what's FourSquare all about? It seems to be an app that lots of people have been talking about lately. It's a location based app that allows you to check-in to businesses, restaurants, shops, and places of interests. It's also a great way to find out where your friends are, see the places they've been and check those places out too. As well as that, while checking-in to different venues you collect points and badges depending on how often you check-in. The more check-ins in one day there more points you'll get. After your first check-in you get your Newbie badge, check-in at ten venues gets you an adventurer badge, twenty-five check-ins earns you the Explorer badge, there's even a Local badge if you've checked-in at a venue three or more times in a week. There are a whole host of other badges to unlock which I won't know of until I unlock myself. If you regularly check-in at one venue then you can gain the Mayorship of that venue which means that you're the person that has checked-in the most at the particularly venue. But you can also be ousted as Mayor if someone else then checks-in more than you. There are some people who do guard their Mayorship closely and will try to maintain this Mayorship and it's also something that makes FourSquare fun to use.

But FourSquare is also a neat way for you to discover new places or discover neat little things about a venue that you should check out. There is a nifty Tips section where you can write a tip or a recommendation about a venue for other people to check out and do. For example, if you checked-in to a restaurant and you discovered a great dish that you loved, you could recommend this for people to try out. Likewise, when you check-in at a venue you could see if there were any tips for you do. You can then add these to your To-do list or add it to your Done list. It's a great way of discovering new things which I find a cool feature of FourSquare.

In order to use FourSquare you'll need an account with them and you can create this right from within the app, which I find is a bonus. I get annoyed with some apps that take you to the browser to create an account. Once you've created an account you can then start checking-in right away. You also have the ability to link your Twitter and Facebook accounts so whenever you check-in somewhere your status will be updated with this information for all your friends to see, as well as your friends on FourSquare. One thing I don't like is that the only way to link your Twitter and Facebook accounts is via the FourSquare website. There's no way to add them via the app as of right now. If would make things easier if you could.

You'll also find a Leader Board section that shows who's checked-in the most places between you and your FourSquare friends. This resets every week, so each week you could compete with your friends for top spot. This would work well if you had a lot of friends, especially in the same city.

Are there any negatives? Well, one thing I've discovered while checking-in at venues is that it shows places that are a few miles away. The furthest location that has showed up for me was 6 miles away. This can be seen as a way of cheating as you could potentially check-in to places you haven't set foot in. However, this can also be useful if you forgot to check-in at a venue and you could do so afterwards. But this relies on users being honest with their check-ins. Though I'm pretty sure the majority of FourSquare users check-in to places they really have set foot in. I must admit I've forgotten to check-in once and check-in afterwards but I wasn't miles away, I was only down the road. So this is something FourSquare needs to work on but it is still in beta and hopefully it can be rectified by the time the full version is released.

I've been using FourSquare for a couple of weeks already and I find the tips section the most useful part, especially when you go somewhere new or while you're on holiday. I recently went on a road trip and found the tips very helpful when I've checked-in at some venues. Collecting badges and points is also a cool, fun feature and what makes FourSquare appealing but I've found that you've really got to get your friends using it too, otherwise you're on your own and can get a little lonely and mundane.

One thing I should mention is security. Remember this is a social app and a location based app. I for one don't check-in from home as I don't want the whole to know where I live. If you're adding people be sure you know them. And if you're going to link FourSquare to your Twitter or Facebook accounts remember people will know where are. Be safe and have fun with the app responsibly.

Reader comments

Foursquare for BlackBerry Review

Kevin (aka Ryan Seacrest): Oh DJ, that was nicely done. Working McDonald's into the video was totally the way to win my heart and my vote. I love it. Kind of like torture though with the BlackBerry Fitness Challenge taking place right now (I keep thinking about those golden arches in my dreams!). Let's check in with the judges.

Dieter: You keep it simple, Dawg, and I like that. I hope you move on to the next round for sure, DJ. Your video is clear and easy to follow (though a very brief explanation of what FourSquare is at the beginning would have been nice). The review is also clear and straightforward - no muss, no fuss.

Georgia: Yay DJ, I really enjoyed watching your video. You were confident and comfortable in front of the camera which allowed me to fully focus on the application you were reviewing, awesome! After watching the video I felt that I could download the application right away and use it. I found your written review was very easy to follow but not as informative as the video review. There were also some minor grammatical issues which you should be careful of, such as starting a sentence with a but. Hope to see you for the next part of the competition!

Craig: What a pleasure to read a review and watch a video from someone who has a firm grasp on the English language. Well done! Your video was interesting to watch and you actually checked in somewhere to show the viewer how the app works. Your written review was crystal clear and easy to read. I really got a great sense for this app. I would like to see you move on to the next round.

I haven't read the written review, but the video was nice. It felt so natural (not forced) watching. You were so confident and relaxed. I'm not following the contest closely, but I know a good reviewer when I see one.
I hope you advance.

As a fellow newbie to foursquare I thoroughly appreciated this review and loved the confidence factor as well. I felt I was watching an experienced reviewer going about her normal business.

Now for some reason I'm trying to add Ms. Reyes on foursquare and I'm running into a world of issues because "there isn't a DJ Reyes near Brooklyn, NY". Really stupid on foursquare's part but I'll try to figure it out.

*Update* I figured it out, request sent. If anyone would like to friend me I'm Robert Diggs (and if you have to add me on twitter like I did DJ, I'm diggs31). Anyone else on 4sq?

Now, I have tried Fourquare in the past, and am really wondering how many people use it. Thought I saw an article online somewhere that 2 million people have registered? However, none of my friends have. Any way we could get a poll going on CrackBerry nation usership?

I enjoyed this review because it was clear, understandable, and a useful app (if you're into that).

My only negative (because I have to find one) was your camera angle. You used your right hand to operate your phone, the camera was on the right and you approached your phone from the left which consistently blocked the view of the phone. Somewhat distracting.

Maybe next time position the camera on the left and approach your phone from the right (using your right hand) which would cut back on blocked viewing. Just an idea.

Hey DJ, this review was so well done that I was compelled to go back and give your audition video another look. You certainly bring up some good points in that audition about using AutoText and BBM, both killer reasons for staying with a BlackBerry device. And I agree, having a female person on this site would be a positive.

Crack on! Hope to see you in the next round. You've got a vote from me.

@Georgia I spotted my sentence beginning with but and agree I must watch that, need to break that habit.

@The_Adventist I will change camera angle for next time or maybe use my left hand instead. Thanks for pointing that out.

@Davepeckens After seeing the quality of many fellow contestants' audition videos (one of them being yours) I felt I needed to step up for my app review. I hope to see you in the next round too. Good luck!

@Kevin I know what you mean about it being torture. I did the review before the BlackBerry Fitness challenge started and watching the video back makes me crave a juicy burger lol.

Great blog. One thing to note:
--Even if a venue comes up and is quite a distance away (e.g. 6km), you may not earn any points or mayorships if you try to check in. Foursquare does check to see how close you are to a venue to give points. It is spotty though....

Enjoyable video, very good writeup. While I found your hand position distracting and at several times during video I was hoping for a close-up of the screen to see how you were accesssing the menus, I did like how you told us what the app does and how it does it. I've heard of the app, but I never followed up on what it was about, and I feel with your review, that I now I understand what it does and why I would want it. I appreciate your inclusion of a safety warning, as the app can set you up to be robbed or assaulted if you're not careful on who knows your exact whereabouts. I also liked how you discussed a flaw in the program that allows one to cheat with the game factor of the app. I liked your screen shots, too. Though you didn't have a separate pros and cons section for a fast glance of your review, your commentary reflected what the pros and cons were. I look forward to your next review.

Great review DJ! The video was awesome and I like how you have a stand so you can keep the phone steady while you film it, great work with the screen caps and you give it a real personal vibe I look forward to seeing more videos from you

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